Romans 4:7 · World English Bible
Romans 4:7 Meaning Blessed Are They Whose Iniquities Are Forgiven
Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
What does Romans 4:7 mean?
Kamma: Action and its fruit Intentional deeds ripen, and an iniquity is a deed whose ripening is still ahead of the doer. The blessing falls on people who keep a ledger, so the ease being described belongs to someone who did the thing and remembers doing it.
From the Buddhism reading below.
Romans 4:7 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Buddhism
BUDDHISM
Buddhism
Kamma: Action and its fruit Intentional deeds ripen, and an iniquity is a deed whose ripening is still ahead of the doer. The blessing falls on people who keep a ledger, so the ease being described belongs to someone who did the thing and remembers doing it. A debt comes due whether or not the debtor lies awake over it, which is why the first place any relief can reach is the debtor himself.
Kukkucca: Worry over what was done Kukkucca is the fretting over deeds committed and duties skipped, counted among the hindrances that keep a mind stirred. Unforgiven wrongdoing does its damage in the present, in a mind circling one old night again and again, the way a tongue keeps going back to a sore tooth. Cover that, and the circling stops, and attention is free for whatever stands in front of the person.
Avippaṭisāra: Freedom from remorse Avippaṭisāra is the ease of having nothing to hide, and it opens a chain running through gladness into calm and steadiness of mind. Blessed here means happy, a condition felt in the shoulders and in a night of sleep, and it arrives when the accounting stops. In the Pali order that happiness is where practice becomes possible, so this is where the work can begin.
Anusaya: Latent tendencies Anusaya are the dispositions that sleep below awareness until conditions wake them. A lid on a pot leaves everything that is in the pot; covering and uprooting are different acts. Greed and aversion go on lying there in the forgiven man exactly as before, and the old pull returns next week when the right person walks through the door. Digging that root out is separate work, and it takes the whole path.
Saddhā: Trust Saddhā is confidence placed in what cannot yet be verified, the faculty that gets a person moving. The happy man David sings about stands behind Abraham, who was counted righteous for trusting before he had any record to show. Trust of that kind is something you lean on and act from, letting your own seeing catch up later.
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Live Romans 4:7 today
- Pick the one thing you replay at two in the morning. Say it plainly to yourself, once, without the defense attorney and without the prosecutor, and then let the night be a night.
- Tell the person you wronged that you were wrong, in a text or a call today, without the long explanation of why you had to. Then stop talking and let them answer.
- When someone brings up your old mistake in front of others, you do not have to perform shame or build a case. Say yes, that happened, and keep working on what is in front of you.
What are you still paying interest on that was settled a long time ago?
The same truth in other traditions
Judaism · Yom Kippur
One day a year is set aside for saying the wrong out loud and then letting it be done. What is confessed and settled is not carried into the next day.
Stoicism · Seneca
Spend your regret once, on changing the thing, and then stop. Grief over what is finished adds a second loss to the first.
Bhagavad Gita
Let go of everything else and take refuge in me, and I will free you from all your wrongs. The release is given, not earned by the one who asks.
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